Precooked rice in the form of dehydrated, gelatinized rice grains, which reconstitute to form products similar to those obtained by boiling commodity rice in water is well known in the prior art. An exemplary method for producing dehydrated precooked rice grains of the quick cooking or "instant" type which has enjoyed wide commercial success is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,438,939 by Ozai-Durrani.
The preparation of an "instant" rice product in a recipe form generally requires the addition of a fixed amount of water to a fixed volume of use. The suggested amount of water should generally be sufficient to dehydrate the rice, producing a finished product having the desired texture and mouthfeel. As a result of the production variation from batch to batch, the amount of water required to prepare a finished product would vary depending on the level of gelatinization per batch. To compensate for the batch-to-batch variation, an amount of water is selected to compensate for any and all variations which often times result in an excess requiring pouring off of the excess water.
An object of the present invention is, therefore, to reduce the pour-off in instant rice products.
Another object of the present invention is to improve the uniformity of instant rice products.
A further object of the present invention is to provide an efficient use of waste by-product from the manufacture of instant rice.